Let's Go Places: The Great Blogger Road Trip, Part One

 

Friends, the Great Road Trip of 2026 is in progress.  Two bloggers, one car, and many miles.

I am a slow writer in general and an even slower travel writer in particular, so I thought I would try a little experiment with rapid, semi-real time blogging.  Instead of sifting through billions of pictures and trying to come up with Profound Thoughts, how about I check in every few days and give you a quick run down of what's been going on?

How This Trip Came to Be

It has been two years since Kyria and I met up in Buffalo, and we were due for another meeting.  She is mainly interested in National Parks, I am mainly interested in state capitals, and we are both interested in meeting up with bloggy friends.  There is a lot of overlap between the three interests.

Normally this is where I give you a day by day overview of the trip so that you have a snapshot before we start chatting, but we're going to do things a little differently this time.  There are so many moving parts to the trip AND we're still on it.  All that you need to know for right now is that the trip started at Birchwood HQ, we are traveling in the BirchieMobile, and the total estimated mileage is 4,000.

Trip Prologue: Birchwood HQ

Kyria flew into town a few days before we left.  Our activities included but were not limited to:

• Hanging out at home
• Dog walks
• Hiking in my "local" National Park (pictured above)
• Going to the nearest Big City and seeing the sights.
• Meeting up with bloggy friends who enjoy privacy and not having their names and locations disclosed on the internet.
• Dinner with Hubs

The biggest unknown was how Doggo would take to having a new person in the house.  She warmed up to Kyria right away, but would usually bark and growl at her when she came into the room, so things were not perfect but overall it was a huge success.  In her spare time, Doggo worked Kyria for kisses and treats (not necessarily in that order) and was not shy about claiming her seat at the table.

Time passed quickly and it was soon time to pack up our stuff and hit the road.  

Here is a shot of our luggage: 

• Stuff on floor: car cooler on wheels, my weekender bag with clothes, toiletries, and electronics, green tote with food, small red bag with coffee making supplies (portable kettle, pour over filter, and travel mug).  
• Stuff on bench:
• Left side, red reusable grocery bag with snacks, sneakers, and my extensive Road Water Bottle Collection.  
• Right side: Kyria's backpack, sneakers, and reused BK coffee cup.  
• Not shown: our purses, a backpack that I kept extra clothes in, and a few extra odds and ends in the car.  

The point of all this: I have much more stuff than Kyria does!  Clothing wise, I brought a four day cycle of outfits to mix and match and rotate through that will tide me over between laundry stops.

Day 1

Start: Birchwood HQ

End: Burr Ridge IL (suburb of Chicago)

States Traveled In: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois

Things we did: hiking at Indiana Dunes NP, dinner with Ernie.

Eats: cereal bars in the car for breakfast.  For lunch we hit up the car cooler for sandwiches from our stash of Road Sandwich supplies.  Dinner was a combo meat platter at a middle Eastern restaurant.

Media Consumed/Road Trip Activities

• Various podcasts
• Taking note of license plates on passing cars.  We set a goal to find at least one other car with an Ohio license plate in every state on the trip and were successful in all of our day one states.
• Listened to the Music Man soundtrack.  Why?  Because we drove through Gary, Indiana

Best Thing: dinner with Ernie.

2nd Best Thing: Indiana Dunes NP

Worst Thing: the hotel in Burr Ridge.  It was a room with two queen beds and one nightstand with one lamp between the beds.  There was no lightbulb in the lamp, and by the end of our stay we still did not have a lightbulb and not for a lack of asking.  In the end Kyria did what the hotel was unable to do and moved a lightbulb from another fixture to the bedside lamp.

2nd Worst Thing (but bonus points because it includes a funny anecdote): Storm damage at Indiana Dunes NP and Gary, Indiana.  There were a lot of trees down on the trails.  At one point two young, very fit men passed from the other side of the trail and I asked them if there were more trees down from where they had come from.  It turned out that they were just a little bit ahead of us on the trail and had turned around, and one said "we're just not feeling very spry today".  From then on Kyria and I gave ourself Spry Awards for each tree that we had to climb over.  All of the traffic lights were out in Gary, some roads were flooded, and the number of downed trees was insane.

Day Two

Start: Burr Ridge IL

End: Minneapolis MN

States Traveled In: Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota

Ohio License Plate Sightings: Illinois = yes, Wisconsin = no, Minnesota = no

Things We Did: met up with Engie and Sarah for an early lunch in Madison, stayed with Lisa & Fam in Minneapolis, and played a family game of Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese, Pizza.

Eats: yogurt, granola, and honey (a typical Road Food breakfast), a breakfast burrito for lunch, and a feast at Lisa's: grilled brats, corn on the cob, and a green bean salad.

Media Consumed/Road Trip Activities

• The Reframe Podcast with  Elisabeth!!!  
• We started listening to the Acquired podcast on Berkshire Hathaway (three parts, total run time nine hours).

Best Thing: hanging out with Lisa & Fam

2nd Best Thing: lunch meetup with Sarah and Engie (y'all only get the #2 spot because you cannot compete with the cuteness of Lisa's kids)

Worst Thing and 2nd Worst Thing: none to report other than traffic and construction and Madison and a little road fatigue

Day Three

Start: Minneapolis MN

End: Bismarck ND

States Traveled In: Minnesota and North Dakota

Ohio License Plate Sightings: Minnesota = no, North Dakota = yes

Things We Did: morning walk with Lisa around Lake Harriet, brief stop in Fargo ND 

Eats: oatmeal at Lisa's, Road Sandwich from the cooler for lunch, fancy ramen for dinner.

Media Consumed/Road Trip Activities

• Zero podcasts were listened to because we were feeling chatty
• 36 Questions 

Best Thing: the morning walk with Lisa

2nd Best Thing: talking for six hours straight, and Fargo was cute

Worst Thing: it was just not a bad day, and I'm really having to dig deep to come up with a negative.  The toilet paper holder in the Bismarck Airbnb was a weird place and it was very difficult to reach from the throne.

Speaking of the Airbnb, Let's Rate It!

The unit was a two bedroom, one bathroom house near the capitol.  High praise for looks and function, constructive criticism for the TP access situation.

That's a Wrap on Part One of the Great Blogger Road Trip.  Let's meet up here again in a few days and I'll catch you up on where we go next.

Great Blogger Road Trip Series:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Wrap Up